The Religion of Baseball

Baseball is religion; there is no doubt about it. The game, as well as the community and industry that envelop it have all the mystery, beauty, and horrors of the religious life and religious history.

If you need convincing just visit Chicago and talk to a Cubs fan. I was there three years ago, arriving the day of the Cubs loss to the Dodgers in game four of the National League Divisional Series. By the time I touched down at O’Hare the game was over but the atmosphere was thick with a martyr’s agony and voices could be heard with a collected lament of Cubby fans, “My God, My God why have thou forsaken us again!”

I have to admit I was even feeling a bit slighted. I mean after all, imagine my disappointment as a baseball fan and at the least a Cubby sympathizer, having the fortune of being scheduled to be in Chicago during game five of the divisional series on a year when the Cubs looked poised to break a World Series drought of biblical proportions. I knew I couldn’t afford or acquire a ticket that would get me into that Holy of Holies, Wrigley field, but I could at least hang outside the temple gate in some bar in Wrigleyville and watch the game. It promised to be, beer in hand and greasy food in gut, an ecstatic experience with all of the movements of a pilgrims journey from despair to hope and back again.

On the day of game four I boarded a plane for Chicago, hoping and praying that the Cub’s would extend the series. Alas, I found myself at a local haunt in the Lincoln Park neighborhood having a $10 steak at 10:30 at night, sharing drinks and disappointment with the remnant of Cub’s fans just hours after their fleeting hopes of World Series redemption were brought to an end.

Cub’s fans talk about their pain and suffering with ease because they are so well acquainted with it. The Cubs, by their failure, exemplify the game of baseball far more then say the New York Yankees with all their success. I say this because baseball unlike any other game is marked by failure. What I mean is that even the elite hitters in the league still fail 2/3 of the time. This is one of the ways in which baseball is religion. Contrary to some ideas, it is often the inexplicable and universal suffering of humanity that draws people to worship, pray, and seek – the problem of suffering is not just a deterrent to faith but is also a portal into faith, finding their way through it, and creating hope out of despair.

The only thing worse than being a Cub’s fan is not being a Cub’s fan although White Sox fans would argue that point I’m sure. It is undeniable however that as a Cub’s fan you are a part of something unique and the solidarity and community created, not by victory but by defeat always in the shadow of victory, is as strong perhaps stronger than that of any dynasty.

There are many other reasons that baseball is religion. I mean, what other sporting event do you attend where the entire “congregation” of fans raises and sings together a hymn to that which they’ve come to worship?

There is of course the fact that it is a meditative game that moves slowly; a game in which careful nuances and scrutiny are often unnoticed and unexamined by the novice and which cost the game customers to the faster moving and blunt forces of other sports like football and basketball and ridiculous things like professional wrestling and ultimate fighting. It is the same as religion in our world. Whether it’s the fancy trappings of the evangelical mega churches or the latest in Oprah’s new age philosophers like Eckhart Tolle, we like our enlightenment “gift wrapped” and our religion served with convenience and a double short latte.

Baseball is like good food and God; it takes time. It takes repetition. Swing after swing, pitch after pitch, ground ball after groundball and they play almost every day. Baseball players are the monastic’s of sports. Their lives have a rhythm that defines them; a daily offering of devotion, practice, and prayer that shape and form them.

As I wrote this essay the first time the Phillies had a 3-1 series lead on the Rays and though the Cub’s weren’t in it there was still enough of the human stories to make it a religious experience. The improbable run of the Rays; going from worst to first, is a radical and powerful story of baseball redemption. Jamie Moyer, as old as Moses in baseball years, leading the Phillies towards the promised land – “who am I” you can almost hear him say; his slow pitches being used like Moses slow speech to lead a community out of the slavery of mediocrity.

It seems whatever happens it remains true that baseball is a religion unto itself and that is perhaps why it is the holiest and most spiritual of the games. Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent said it well,

“Baseball teaches us or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure. We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often – those who hit safely in one out of three chances and become star players. I also find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth.”

Let’s not forget the experiential truth of baseball; it has all the smells and bells of the most elaborate Easter Orthodox service. There is the murmur of the crowed that swells in hopeful prayer, devastated lament, and ecstatic thanksgiving. The sharp edges of the temple defined by green, brown, and white lines illuminated by thousands of lights shining the same on the common folks in the cheap seats and the luxury boxes; our noses filled with the incense of freshly cut grass, oiled leather, hot dogs, roasted peanuts, and beer.

“Is this heaven”? No, it isn’t Iowa either Mr. Costner, this is baseball which has endured and will continue to endure through steroids controversy, high priced salaries, and over commercialization because it alone has failure and error as a part of its rigorous truth; a part of the beauty of the game. We can all relate with the ball through our legs, the swings that never connect, and what it feels like when for that brief moment we succeed. We know the pain and the hope and to know it together unites us and envelops us in the most concrete form of grace; a community that shares a love and pursuit of something bigger than ourselves.

Prayers for Kindness

If there is a common human language it could be argued that prayer is that language. Though people in our world certainly pray differently or understand themselves to be praying to a different god or praying with different intents; nevertheless they pray. Even people who are not particularly religious in a formal sense pray. Prayer it would seem is a fairly universal act.

Still, many people find prayer difficult. Even those that pray sense that they don’t really pray well and will often admit that they don’t really know what they are doing in prayer. Ask people why we pray or what really constitutes prayer and the answers are littered with mystery and uncertainty. Still, almost everyone acknowledges that we ought to pray and we are most often grateful when we are kept in the prayers of others.

The opening 14 verses of Paul’s letter to the Colossians seems a good place to start with a conversation about prayer. His introduction within the letter is full of acknowledgements about how much he has prayed for them. In Paul’s mind these prayers are both part of the substance as well as the vehicle for their relationship. Prayer is a part of the union they have together and it is key to what holds them together.

The first thing that is striking about Paul’s understanding of prayer is that prayers of thanksgiving are the proper foundation of prayer for the church because our life and being rests in God’s work of salvation. By communicating and reminding ourselves of the certainty and faithfulness of God’s love and grace we are freed. We are free because we have a hope that cannot be shaken and that hope leads us towards effervescent acts of Christ’s love towards the world. For Paul prayer starts with the acknowledgement of the certainty and faithfulness of God’s grace for us. The illustration that comes to me is that of someone with a memory problem. If we don’t remind ourselves of the truth then we forget. If we move out to do anything in this world without this truth of our God's grace than everything we do gets warped. We forget this truth and must remind ourselves everyday. Thus, this is the foundation for prayer.

Another word that comes to mind when I read Paul’s introduction to his letter to the Colossians is the word intimacy.

First, intimacy in the sense of the intimate connection forged mysteriously between those who pray with and for one another. Paul most likely did not know these Colossians all that well. His actual time spent with them was short in all likelihood and yet he speaks to a kind of connection that goes beyond time spent. This idea that Paul seems to gravitate towards points to a longstanding way of understanding prayer particularly cultivated within the ancient church and particular within monastic life.

When we think about monks we think about a retreat from the world. Yet the monastics themselves have never understood it as such. They retreat in particular ways for the sake of being present in more radical and important ways to the rest of the world. They would say that prayer is one of those ways that they are radically present. For monastics the life of prayer produces a kind of intimate relationship with others. Their prayer is a dialogue and a union with God and with other people that they actually believes has the effect of holding the world together.

This kind of understanding of prayer can also be found in the writings and practices of the Catholic priest Henri Nouwen. In his book The Way of the Heart. Nouwen understands the intimacy produced by prayer in relational terms. While prayer involves the head he argues that prayer is not primarily a cerebral enterprise. Without Nouwen I wouldn’t know how to understand Paul’s statement in this letter that “we have not ceased praying for you”. Surely, he doesn’t mean that they pray all day and everyday? That sounds impractical and horribly boring. Still we are admonished elsewhere in scripture to “pray without ceasing”. Again, it is Nouwen’s prayer of the heart that helps me understand what is meant by this.

The prayer of the heart is simply acknowledgment of the active presence of God’s spirit at work in one’s life. Prayer is not located out there. God is not located out there but God resides within us in some mysterious way. When we understand that the place of prayer is within our own hearts then we simply allow ourselves to not so much pray more but to recognize the prayer that is already taking place within us. The prayer of the heart is the active acknowledgement of all of who or what has entered our lives and bringing all of that into God’s presence at the center of our being. Now what does that mean? I’m not totally sure but I think the basic invitation is no so much to pray more but to live prayerfully and their is a difference between those two things.

The second way the word intimacy comes to mind in regards to Paul’s thoughts about prayer are related to Paul’s keen awareness of the intimate relationships between knowledge and practice. To know God has everything to do with how we practice that knowing. Paul has no time for claims of esoteric wisdom; for true knowledge of God is always the practical love of one’s neighbor. This brings us to the gospel text I wish to speak of with is Luke's parable known as The Good Samaritan.

The parable of the good Samaritan is probably the most familiar of all parables. In fact it has become so well known that the meaning of the parable can be minimized in all its familiarity quite easily. It is also quite easy to begin moralizing when we use this parable.

I think the first thing this parable invites us to do is to acknowledge that we cannot know good and evil. We often think and are taught that one of the things that is given to us as Christians is the ability to discern good from evil but that is not biblical. When Adam and Eve were in the garden in what we believe was perfect relationship with God and one another they did not have knowledge of good and evil. The ability to discern good and evil perfectly is something that only God can do. In fact it is the main attribute that separates God from us. The tree of our downfall is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To be human by its nature is to NOT have the ability to discern good and evil perfectly. To be able to do so assumes that we can see all of any particular situation but of course we cannot because we are not God. Our knowledge is limited and finite and so we cannot handle such a burden.

So the life of discipleship is not a life primarily marked by knowing the good from the evil but rather a life meant and purposed to know only God and God’s mercy. Part of how we know God and God’s mercy is this prayer of the heart that Nouwen describes. This prayer helps us move past the black and white of good and evil and invites us to identify, humanize, and embrace the most unlikely of neighbors. Prayer can move us from the natural condition of self-preoccupation and preservation (which is why we so quickly want to name good and evil to protect our own self interests) to one of profound concern for others.

Too often we simply make the point of this parable as “we should all be like the Samaritan” and that is certainly one reading of the parable. But, I’d also invite us to put ourselves in the ditch rather than as the passer bye. The question then comes to us who is the person we’d least like to be walking by when we needed help? Who is the person we’d be most scandalized to receive assistance from? This is the profound truth of this story. I’ve heard of a preacher who had the courage to preach this sermon in New York after 9/11 and in her account the Samaritan was a Muslim terrorist; this woman a Jew herself said for her it was Ha-mas. What this parable screams to us is that we mustn't dehumanize even what we perceive as our greatest enemy. We cannot possibly see or understand the whole story.

The lawyer in the parable of Jesus’ telling so despises the Samaritan that he can’t even use his name. When asked who was the neighbor he says “the one that showed him kindness”. It is the scandalizing truth of “who helps” that carries the power of this parable. We are not primarily the “helper” but the one lying in the ditch if we want to hear this parable clearly. This parable invites us to identify, humanize, and embrace the most unlikely of neighbors.

While the lawyer can’t say the word Samaritan another word that he uses in response to Jesus is quite powerful. It is the word kindness (sometimes translated to mercy). I’d like to offer that the true mark of neighborliness is kindness. I think even those of us who are the most ethically minded have forgotten this important truth at times. Sometimes I’m reminded that even the people who I agree with I don’t end up liking very much because they have ceased to be kind. I find myself backing away from them not because of their ideas but the way they pro-port those ideas. It seems these days we are more concerned with rights than forgiveness, more concerned with justice then mercy, and more concerned with equality then compassion. Now I believe in individual rights, justice, and equality but not without forgiveness, mercy, and compassion. Where is the kindness? When we simply work for rights, justice and equality without kindness we perpetuate the very thing we seek to combat.

When I think of the prayers our world is most in need of I think of a prayer for kindness. Perhaps true human kindness is the greatest fruit of God’s spirit. When we are kind we acknowledge what God is always trying to restore and remind us of and that is our humanity.

I think part of how we come to know our most hated enemies as neighbors is through the deep way of prayer. Something changes in us and between us when we bring people into God’s presence at the center of our being. We don’t bring them in with the form of chastising prayers of "oh, God help this horrible person realize how horrible they are do they stop inconveniencing or hurting me” but rather “God help me understand, love, and see this person as human”.